Dominion
by Akarui KH
Summary: A collection of short fics about Azrael and Natarle, two enemies. We're getting so used to love stories that we forget the stories that started the war in the first place stories of hate.
1. The Watcher

He knows that he can kill her while she sleeps. She is vulnerable and oblivious as she lies there, alone, in her bed. He could pull the trigger any second and it would all be over. She'd never know what hit her; she would merely cease to exist.

He knows that he can get away with it. Of everyone on board the Dominion, he has the highest standing with the Earth Alliance forces. No one would ever dream that he would do something as horrible as killing his captain. And he could so easily shift the blame to another person. If he said that Orga, Shani or Clotho were responsible for her death, they would believe him. It would be that easy – almost too easy – to cover it up.

He hates Natarle Badgiruel. He hates her for disobeying him, he hates her for her arrogance, he hates her for her beliefs. He hates everything about her, and as he stands in the entryway to the captain's dorm late at night, knowing everyone else is asleep, he rests a hand on his gun and knows that he could dispose of her right there.

Yet every night, after he stays there for hours just observing her, knowing he has all the power in the world, he can be found stalking silently away. No damage is done. His hatred is his power, and he must control his power, lest it become dangerous. It is his secret, and when the right moment comes, he will finally set it free.


	2. Monsters

Natarle had asked him, once, when he first boarded the Dominion, why he hated Coordinators so much. It was a daring thing to say on any Earth Alliance vessel, she knew, but her experiences aboard the Archangel had changed many of her own views. She had to know what would motivate someone to join – to _lead_ – a group like Blue Cosmos. Azrael looked at her with raised eyebrows and answered matter-of-factly, "Coordinators are inhuman. They're monsters."

While Natarle couldn't agree with what the Blue Cosmos leader said, she knew better than to argue. The word 'inhuman', however, kept repeating in her mind. For someone to be inhuman, they would have to be cold, cruel and heartless.

She thought of Kira Yamato, the only Coordinator she'd ever gotten to know, and found it difficult to believe that all Coordinators were, as Azrael put it, 'inhuman' or 'monsters'. Kira, the one who fought against his people to protect the ones he cared about, a monster? That gentle boy, who hated fighting – he was inhuman, just because of his genes?

If anyone was inhuman, it was Azrael himself. Natarle had no idea what made him think that way, but it was his actions that were truly unforgivable. He showed no sign of caring what happened to anyone else so long as he was alive to see as many Coordinators dead as he could.

He laughed at the sight of ZAFT mobile suits exploding, thrilled to watch the pilots die. He watched the pursuit of the Freedom and the Justice with the air of a spectator at a sports match. And when he ordered the nuclear attack on Boaz, shattering hundreds of lives, his face lit up like an excited child's – it bore the most gleeful expression Natarle had seen in her life, and also the most frightening.

He didn't even care about the people on his own side. He watched the pilots of Calamity, Raider and Forbidden suffer without a shed of sympathy and then sent them off to kill again. When ZAFT fired GENESIS, wiping out over half the Earth Alliances' forces, he didn't even flinch upon hearing of the loss, insisting that they continue to fight. Nothing mattered to him but his own gain.

And yet, after everything, he continued to insist that the only monsters on the battlefield were the Coordinators, even having the nerve to call himself a saint. Natarle knew better. Azrael was no saint; he was a monster. Maybe they were all monsters, for they had all chosen to fight in this war. Either way, she found herself hating him for all he had done. She hated him for being so heartless, and perhaps hatred made her no different after all.


End file.
